Illinois Tool Works Q1 2022 Earnings Results & Report

Illinois Tool Works EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.11
• Consensus EPS: $2.07
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.04
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.11
• EPS Beat Rate: 8 of last 8 quarters

Illinois Tool Works Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.94 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.76 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$181.35 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +11.10%

Illinois Tool Works (NYSE:ITW) (NYSE: ITW) is a diversified industrial manufacturer that develops and produces specialized equipment, components, consumables and systems for customers in a range of industries. Founded in 1912 and headquartered in Glenview, Illinois, the company serves markets worldwide through a portfolio of highly engineered businesses.

ITW’s operations include food equipment, automotive components, welding products, test and measurement equipment, electronics materials, polymers and fluids, construction products, and specialty products. Its offerings support applications such as commercial food preparation, vehicle manufacturing and repair, industrial production, construction, electronics assembly and maintenance.

The company operates through a decentralized business model and emphasizes customer-focused product development, application engineering and specialized manufacturing. ITW sells its products internationally, serving customers across North America, Europe, Asia and other global markets.

Illinois Tool Works Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• ITW delivered 11% organic revenue growth in Q1, with 23% operating margins and GAAP EPS of $2.11, matching a prior quarterly record.
• Despite significant input cost inflation, the company offset cost increases dollar-for-dollar in Q1 but experienced a 250 bps margin headwind, which it expects to moderate and turn positive later in the year.
• Full-year 2022 guidance was raised to 7%–10% organic growth (midpoint 8.5%) and GAAP EPS of $9.00–$9.40 (midpoint $9.20, a 14% increase), reflecting strong demand and current supply/cost projections.
• Key segment performance included a 28% organic increase in Food Equipment, 13% in Welding (record 30.8% segment margin), and 21% in Construction, while the Automotive OEM segment remains flat due to chip shortages.
• Free cash flow was $249 million (38% conversion) after deliberate working-capital investments to secure supply and service levels, with plans to return to ~80%–85% conversion once supply normalizes.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is David, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the ITW Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there'll be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one once again. For those participating in the Q&A, you'll have the opportunity to ask one question and, if needed, one follow-up question. Karen Fletcher, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

[Karen Fletcher, VP of Investor Relations at Illinois Tool Works]

Thank you, David. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to ITW's first quarter 2022 conference call. I'm joined by our Chairman and CEO, Scott Santi, and Senior Vice President and CFO, Michael M. Larsen. During today's call, we'll discuss ITW's first quarter financial results and update our guidance for full year 2022. Slide two is a reminder that this presentation contains forward-looking statements. We refer you to the company's 2021 Form 10-K for more detail about important risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. This presentation uses certain non-GAAP measures, and a reconciliation of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is contained in the press release. Please turn to slide three, and it's now my pleasure to turn the call over to our Chairman and CEO, Scott Santi.

[E. Scott Santi, Chairman and CEO at Illinois Tool Works]

Thanks, Karen, and good morning, everyone. We have talked often about the fact that the core focus of our enterprise strategy is to leverage the performance power of the ITW business model to consistently deliver top-tier performance in any environment. Our teams around the world continue to do an exceptional job of doing just that, as evidenced by the 11% organic growth and 23% operating margins that they delivered in Q1. In the quarter, we saw continued strong demand almost across the board, while input cost inflation and supply chain issues remained challenging, to say the least. Our business has responded. Across the company, we continue to leverage the advantaged supply capabilities inherent in our 80/20 Front-to-Back operating system to support our customers and execute our win the recovery strategy to accelerate profitable market penetration and organic growth across our portfolio.

[E. Scott Santi, Chairman and CEO at Illinois Tool Works]

Many of our businesses continue to receive strong feedback from their customers that their current delivery performance is truly differentiated and that they are being awarded additional share as a result. Despite another step-up in input cost inflation in Q1, we more than offset cost increases on a dollar-for-dollar basis in the quarter. Looking ahead at the remainder of 2022, based on our first quarter results and projecting current demand, supply rates, and all known cost increases through the balance of the year, we are raising our guidance for full- year 2022 organic growth to 8.5% at the midpoint and GAAP EPS of $9.20 at the midpoint, which is 14% earnings growth year-over-year and would be an all-time record for the company.

[E. Scott Santi, Chairman and CEO at Illinois Tool Works]

While the near-term environment certainly has its challenges, we remain focused on delivering differentiated service to our customers, differentiated financial performance for our shareholders, and continued progress on our path to ITW's full potential. Now I'll turn the call over to Michael, who will provide more detail on the quarter and our full-year outlook. Michael?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. In Q1, demand was strong across the board and supported by our advantaged supply position. ITW grew revenue by 11.2% to more than $3.9 billion. Organic growth was 10.6%, and the MTS acquisition contributed about $100 million or 2.8% to revenue. Foreign currency translation reduced revenue by 2.2%. GAAP EPS of $2.11 tied last year's Q1 record. Foreign currency translation reduced GAAP EPS by $0.05. By geography, North America grew 13%, International grew 7% with organic growth of 7% in Europe, and China grew 1%. Six of seven segments delivered positive combined organic growth of 14%, while Automotive OEM was down less than 1%.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Orders remained strong across the board, and while we're doing significantly better than many of our competitors in terms of lead times and delivery performance, we grew backlogs again in the first quarter. Sequentially, from Q4 to Q1, organic revenue grew 6% on a sales per day basis as compared to our historical sequential of -1%. While we're on the topic of sequential improvement, GAAP EPS of 2.11 grew 9% relative to Q4 2021. Operating margin was 22.7%, 23.4% excluding 70 basis points of margin dilution from the recent MTS acquisition. Enterprise initiatives contributed 90 basis points. As they always do, our business teams reacted appropriately to higher cost inflation by adjusting selling prices, and as a result, we remain positive on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Price cost was still dilutive to operating margin by 250 basis points. After tax, ROIC was 27.6%, 29.8% excluding the impact of the MTS acquisition. Free cash flow was $249 million with a conversion rate of 38%, which is below our typical 80%-85% in the first quarter. As we've talked about before, the lower conversion rate is due to intentional working capital investments that support our strong growth momentum, mitigate supply chain risk, and sustain service levels to our key customers. Down the road, once supply conditions begin to normalize, so will our working capital needs, resulting in our typical strong cash flow performance.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

As planned, we repurchased $375 million of our shares in the first quarter, and the effective tax rate was 23.1%, 70 basis points higher than Q1 last year. Overall for Q1, an excellent start to the year, characterized by strong broad-based demand, supported by our differentiated supply position as we delivered organic growth of 11%, operating margin of 23%, and GAAP EPS of $2.11. Moving to slide four, we're including an analysis of our current operating margin performance. Reported Q1 operating margin was 22.7%, but there are three factors pressuring our margins in the near term, starting with 250 basis points of margin dilution impact from price costs.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

At some point in the future, when raw material costs begin to normalize, we expect the margin impact from price cost to turn positive, and that we will fully recover the margin differential. Second, Q1 was also the first full quarter of the recent MTS acquisition, which as expected, diluted margins by 70 basis points. As we've talked about before, it will take us a few years to fully implement the ITW business model at MTS and get the business growing organically at ITW caliber margins and returns. Finally, we had slightly higher restructuring associated with the 80/20 Front-to-Back projects, which impacted margins by 20 basis points. The point here is that our core operating margins are currently running around 26%+, which is closer to what we would expect from ITW in a normal environment and not far from our pre-pandemic target of 28%+.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Also further evidence of our continued progress on enterprise strategy-driven structural margin improvement through the pandemic. If you recall, 2019 pre-pandemic margins were right around 24% versus 26% on a core run rate basis here in Q1. As we've said before, we have full confidence in our ability to deliver sustained above-market organic growth at 30%-40% incremental margins. As a result, we will continue to expand operating margins as we grow. Moving on. Automotive OEM was the only segment that didn't grow this quarter, with organic revenue down a little less than 1%, much improved compared to being down 16% in Q4 2021. By geography, North America grew 3%, Europe was down 11%, and China grew 12%.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

You'll remember that the segment is up against a pretty tough comp of +8% organic growth in Q1 last year, as the impact on auto production from chip shortages didn't fully materialize until Q2. At this point, and for guidance purposes, we do not expect an improvement in the chip shortage situation until 2023. As a result, our guidance assumes that automotive production and our associated automotive OEM revenues are essentially capped at current Q1 levels through the balance of the year. Turning to slide five for food equipment, which led the way with the highest organic growth rate this quarter at 28%. North America was up 23%, with equipment up 24% and service up 21%. Restaurants were up over 40%, with strength across the board, and institutional growth was almost 10%, led by education and lodging.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

International growth was strong at 36%, with Europe up 45% and Asia Pacific up 4%. Both equipment and service revenues increased around 36%. In Test & Measurement and Electronics, organic growth was 8%, with Test and Measurement up 10%, Electronics up 6%. Strong demand for semiconductor-related equipment continued to drive organic growth in the mid-teens, while demand for capital equipment also remained strong with Instron, for example, up 6%. Finally, as expected, the MTS acquisition diluted operating margin by about 400 basis points. Excluding the MTS impact, margins were 26% versus 26.4% in Q4 2021. Moving to slide 6. Welding organic revenue grew 13%, with equipment up 10% and consumables up 17%. Industrial grew 14% and the commercial business grew almost 10%.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

North America was up 12% and international growth was 17%, including 18% growth in oil and gas. Europe was up 20% and Asia Pacific was up 15%. Due to strong operating leverage and a solid contribution from enterprise initiatives, Welding operating margin was a record 30.8%, an all-time quarterly record for an ITW segment, and another proof point that as we deliver organic growth with best-in-class margins, there's plenty of room for further margin expansion in all seven segments. In Polymers & Fluids, organic growth was 13% as automotive aftermarket grew 17%. Polymers was up 11% with continued strength in MRO and heavy industry applications. Fluids grew 6%. On a geographic basis, North America grew 15% and international was up 9%. On to slide seven.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Construction delivered strong organic revenue growth of 21% as North America grew 32% with residential up 36% and commercial up 15%. Europe grew 16% and Australia/New Zealand was up 10%. While construction margins were impacted by rising steel costs, operating margin was still a solid 24.7%, with strong volume leverage and a meaningful contribution from enterprise initiatives. Specialty organic growth was 1%, with North America up 7%, while international was down 9%. With that, let's turn to slide 8 for an updated view of our full- year 2022 guidance.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Based on our Q1 results and projecting current levels of demand through the balance of the year as per our standard approach to guidance, we are now projecting organic growth of 7%-10% and total revenue growth of 8.5%-11.5%. Due to the higher revenue growth projections, we're raising GAAP EPS by $0.10 to a range of $9.00-$9.40, and the midpoint of $9.20 represents 14% earnings growth and puts the company on track for another year of record financial performance. Operating margin guidance is unchanged with strong volume leverage and 100 basis points of contribution from enterprise initiatives. When it comes to price cost, our operating teams will continue to more than cover inflation on a dollar for dollar basis.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

As usual, our guidance includes all known cost and price increases as we sit here today. We expect strong free cash flow growth of 10%-20% year-over-year, with a conversion rate of 85%-95% of net income. As we've talked about before, this is below our target of 100%+ because of our decision to invest in the working capital necessary to support the company's strong growth, mitigate supply chain risk, and sustain service levels to our key customers. Finally, we are on pace to repurchase $1.5 billion of our shares, and we continue to expect an effective tax rate of 23%-24%. In summary, Q1 was another quarter of high-quality execution in a very challenging environment.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

As a result, we're off to a solid start on raising both our organic growth and EPS guidance for the full -year. With that, Karen, I'll turn it back to you.

[Karen Fletcher, VP of Investor Relations at Illinois Tool Works]

Okay, thanks, Michael. David, let's open up the lines for questions, please.

[Operator]

Absolutely. At this time, I'd like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. We'll take our first question from Scott Davis with Melius Research. Your line is open.

[Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research]

Good morning, guys.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Morning.

[Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research]

Thanks for making an uneventful quarter versus what we've seen in some other places.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Oh, you're welcome.

[Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research]

Well, a couple of little things here. I mean, first on, you know, your guidance implies kind of, or perhaps doesn't imply, but you're not forecasting additional inflation. Does that mean that you've seen kind of some plateauing in the supply chain price increases in materials, et cetera?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

It's a good question. So let me just explain kinda how we are modeling price-cost, because I think there's an opportunity to maybe clarify a few things. So what we are doing consistent with our past approach around price-cost is we're including in our guidance today all known cost increases and all of the associated price increases. Those are the two things that we know today. Based on that, you know, you saw the actuals of 250 basis points of margin headwind in the first quarter, but actually positive on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

As we project into the future based on what we know today, that 250 basis points is going to become less of a drag on a go-forward basis and maybe even turn slightly positive in the back half of the year. That's kinda what we know. What we don't know, and that's to your question, what are the additional cost increases going to be? We don't know as we sit here today. We have not seen anything to really suggest that inflation is slowing down. We do know that our operating teams will offset any cost increases with price on a dollar for dollar basis. Therefore, EPS neutral, which is the really important point here.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Obviously, that will create additional top line growth, but it will also put pressure on margins as this additional top line growth comes through at essentially no incremental margin, if that makes sense. Hopefully that answers your question. That's what's embedded here. Everything we know as we sit here today is included in our guidance. Additional inflation will be offset, you know, on a dollar for dollar basis. To the extent that happens, that will put some further pressure on margins. Hopefully that answers your question.

[Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research]

That's totally fair. Is there any way to disaggregate the content growth in auto versus kind of potential inventory builds versus sell through, et cetera? Just any color there would be helpful.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

I'd say at this point, that'd be really tough, just given all that's going on.

[Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research]

Okay.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah, I agree with that. I would just add, I mean, I think it's a tough number, and it doesn't make a lot of sense on a quarterly basis. I think in terms of long- term, we're highly confident that we're outgrowing the underlying market, you know, by 2-3 percentage points. What exactly that was in one quarter versus the other is a little bit more difficult to ascertain, especially in the current environment. On a full- year basis, certainly the way these plans are set up is for 2-3 percentage points of outgrowth on an annual basis.

[Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research]

Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, guys. I appreciate the color. Passing on.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Sure. Thank you.

[Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research]

Okay.

[Operator]

Next, we'll go to Tami Zakaria with J.P. Morgan. Your line's open.

[Tami Zakaria, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Good morning.

[Tami Zakaria, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

I wanted to get some clarity on the improved organic growth guidance. You're raising it by a point. Is that a reflection of better than expected first quarter performance versus your internal expectations? Does it embed improved organic growth you're seeing quarter to date? If the latter, which segments are driving that? Is it solely coming from incremental pricing, or are you expecting volume improvement as well?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah. So, Tammy, our growth projection is based on the Q1 actual results that we are reporting today. We are projecting based on historical run rates into through the balance of the year. There's really no assumption here, no economic forecasts or an underlying assumption that things are gonna get better in the back half or worse in the back half of the year. It's based on, again, revenue per day in Q1 and projected into through the balance of the year.

[Tami Zakaria, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Got it. You're not embedding any pricing benefit into the updated guidance?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

No. I think the only pricing that is included in our guidance is what we know as of today. We know what price increases we have actioned and announced, and that is known, but any further increases beyond that would not be included in our guidance as we sit here today.

[Tami Zakaria, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Got it. Super helpful. If I can ask one more follow-up.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Sure.

[Tami Zakaria, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Have you seen any slowdown or impact in your business in the European markets since the war in Ukraine broke? Asked another way, do you feel the demand environment has changed since then?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Well, I think in Q1, I think Europe was up 7%. I think we're seeing you know we saw some pressure in you know if you look at the automotive numbers the sales numbers. We saw a lot of strength on the food equipment side to offset that I think. If you kind of look at the projection for the balance of the year I think it adds up to somewhere in the low single digit type growth rate in Europe. Just to maybe calm everybody down I think so far through April everything appears to be on track including Europe.

[Tami Zakaria, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Great. Thank you so much.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Sure.

[Operator]

Next, we'll go to Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Your line's open.

[Joe Ritchie, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Thanks. Good morning, everybody.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Morning, Joe.

[Joe Ritchie, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

I guess my first question, I wanna just touch on China. I know it's a relatively small part of your business. Saw that it grew double digits in the auto business, but maybe just provide some color on what you're seeing on the ground there with the COVID shutdowns and how that's impacting the business, if at all.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah, I mean, I think just to kind of dimensionalize it, China is about 8% of our revenues. You know, I think at this point, we've not seen. We're obviously not immune to what's going on in China, but like I said, so far through April, everything appears to be on track, including in China.

[Joe Ritchie, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

Good to know. I guess just a follow-on question. You know, you guys price/cost negative 250, you know, but only down 100 basis points for the year. I mean, it's fair to say, I think, like, where you're seeing the most acute pressures in the auto segment. I guess just maybe confirm that that's correct, or if you're seeing other pressure across other parts of your business as well. Just within that improvement that you're seeing, you know, how much of it is already, like, baked into the pricing of those auto contracts that come through as the year progresses?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Everything that we know is baked in, Joe. I think it's fair to say that the inflationary pressures are real across all seven segments. They are a little more pronounced, and you can see it in the margins in auto, maybe construction, this quarter I mentioned that, as well as Polymers and Fluids. I think we're still catching up to some extent. The 250 basis points of headwind will be better starting in Q2, based on what we know today, somewhere closer to 200. Then from there in the back half, if things stay the way they are, like I said earlier, we're starting to turn positive.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

I think the important point is we're beginning to recover the margin impact that we've had over the last four or five quarters now. I think once we get through this cycle, like I said in the prepared remarks, and when things do begin to normalize down the road from a supply chain and from a cost standpoint, that is when the margin recovery begins. We're taking to some extent, this is a near-term pressure here in Q1, and over time, we'll begin to recover those margins again.

[Joe Ritchie, Analyst at Goldman Sachs]

That's helpful. Thank you.

[Operator]

Next, we'll go to Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research. Your line's open.

[Jeff Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Thank you. Good day, everyone. Just first on auto, Scott or Michael, is the idea that you're capped here, what you're hearing directly, you know, from your customers, what you can see on, you know, kind of forward build schedules? Or is this just, you know, for lack of a better term, a dose of caution given the uncertainty?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

It's a combination of things. You know, I think, Jeff, if you go back to our last call, what was baked into our guidance at the time was half of the IHS growth build forecast of 9%. We were basically at somewhere around 4%-5% builds, and that's where IHS is today. I think there's actually not a big change relative to where we were three months ago. What we're basically basing on various data inputs, including from our customers, you know, we thought the best way to update it, you know, kind of forecast the auto business is to say that revenues stay where they are, which is somewhere around $760 million in Q1, and that's what we've assumed for Q2, Q3, and Q4.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Ultimately, I mean, we still believe that down the road, when these supply chain issues get resolved and automotive production recovers, this segment is gonna be very well set up as a strong contributor to the overall organic growth rate of the enterprise. But we just think it's gonna take a little bit longer based on everything that we're seeing and hearing from our customers.

[Jeff Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Understood. Then just back on price, understanding that what you know is embedded in the guide, but if we think about the point addition to the organic growth guide, I suspect all of that maybe even more than 100% of it is price. Could you just give us a little color on that?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

I think you tried this on the last call to get me to tell you a little more about price versus volume. To reiterate, these are best estimates, so I can't give you a lot of detail other than I can tell you that there is volume leverage on the 1% revenue growth increase, and that's really the $0.10 a share that we're adding to our guidance, okay? From that, you can infer it's not all price. It's a combination of things.

[Jeff Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners]

Okay. No. Understood. Thank you for the color.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Sure.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next, we'll go to Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Your line's open.

[Andy Kaplowitz, Analyst at Citigroup]

Good morning, everyone.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Andy.

[Andy Kaplowitz, Analyst at Citigroup]

Scott or Michael. I know you probably don't wanna update us on your segment revenue growth expectations, but outside of auto where you already gave specific guide, it looks like food equipment and construction accelerated versus your run rate, specialty products maybe weakened a bit. Is that a fair characterization of where revenue growth is moving versus your original forecast? And can you give a little more color regarding what you're seeing in specialty products that's maybe holding down that business segment a bit?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah, I think that's. I heard your first part. What was the second part, what did you say slow down?

[Andy Kaplowitz, Analyst at Citigroup]

Specialty.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Specialty. Yeah. I think specialty is really more of a timing issue, you know, related to some specific equipment projects in Europe and a few projects in China. So I think that's really more of a timing issue than anything else. I think if you just kinda take a step back, I think you pointed out the right ones in terms of a lot of strength in certainly Food Equipment, but also Welding, you know, Test & Measurement. There's some up against some difficult comps. You know, Construction, there's certainly a lot of positive momentum really across the board. What does not come across, and we've talked about this before, we're not a backlog-driven company.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

In the segments that are more exposed to the capital equipment space, so that would include Test & Measurement, Welding, Food Equipment, we are building significant backlog. Really, despite the fact that we are performing, like I said, at a high level relative to our competitors, we're building substantial backlog. That's not showing up obviously yet in our revenues.

[Andy Kaplowitz, Analyst at Citigroup]

Michael, you obviously had a large number in construction. Specifically, you mentioned North American renovation, I think up in the low 30% range. You know, it's been going on for a while here, but this was, you know, a big number and getting stronger despite sort of concerns about rising rates. Are you taking share there? Is it just a lot of activity and sort of visibility going forward here in 2022?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Well, I think as you know, I mean, there's still a lot of strength in the U.S. housing market, and that's where you saw these residential remodel numbers up 36%. And included in that is also some meaningful share gains based on, you know, what we're seeing in portions of that business where it's difficult to supply the market. We are taking advantage of our supply position to take share. You know, the commercial side, you know, 15%, that's a smaller part of the business. Then really on a geographic basis, it's not just North America, but it's also, you know, Europe up 16%. You know, for example, U.K. up 20%, and then Australia and New Zealand still delivering a solid 10%. It's pretty broad-based.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

We're modeling based on run rates. We have not seen anything to suggest that the market is slowing down at this point.

[Andy Kaplowitz, Analyst at Citigroup]

Appreciate the color.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Sure.

[Operator]

Next, we'll go to Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research. Your line's open.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Thanks. Good morning.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Good morning.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Thanks for leaving a lot of time. Yeah. Good morning. It's actually great that you know give so much time to Q&A, so thanks. I wish other companies would do this. I know you don't like to talk about price. I know Jeff took a crack at the question, but you know, if I just put through the margin dilution from price costs.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

It seemed as neutral. I get to a, you know, a 9%-10% type price impact. Is that the kind of scale of pricing we're seeing here? Is the message that pricing gets better from here through the year?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Well, what does get better from here, if things stay the way they are, is price cost, as we talked about. We're going, you know, from significant, you know, margin dilution here in Q1 of 250 basis points to maybe even slightly positive in the second half of the year. That, that's based on everything that we know today. Nigel, it's not that we don't wanna. The issue around price is that it is an estimate at best, especially within such a dynamic environment, it would be very difficult to sit here and give you a number with a high degree of confidence. We've not done that historically.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Like, I think we talked about on the last call, we're not gonna go down that path of breaking out price versus volume any further. That's the best I can do here for you.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Okay. No, that's fine. Then just turning to page 4 as my follow-up, the margin bridge, you know, enterprise was, I think, 90 basis points of tailwind. So if we put that in as a sort of a tailwind to that bridge, there would have been 90 basis points elsewhere, so as an offset. I'm assuming that's, you know, productivity in the plants, et cetera. Is that fair, Michael? You know, how do you see sort of productivity, labor productivity, et cetera, improving through the year?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Well, I think that's productivity. I'm not sure exactly how you get there. I mean, I think there's 90 basis points of enterprise initiatives that's not on here.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

It's embedded in the 26-1.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

In the 26.1. So is the, you know, any other productivity gains. There's a couple of things that are not in here is, you know, there's some margin dilution from increased sales commissions. You know, when you grow your revenues double digit, you know, your commissions are gonna go up. But broadly speaking, what we try to do is give you a fairly accurate representation of, you know, these near term pressures and therefore what our core operating margins are running at, which is somewhere around 26%+ in the current environment. As we just talked about, these price cost pressures normalize, that's where we would expect margins to head as we continue on our path to our target of 28%+.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

No, that's very fair. Thank you very much.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Sure.

[Operator]

Thank you. Next, we'll go to Nicole DeBlase with Baird. Your line's open.

[Nicole DeBlase, Managing director and senior research analyst at Baird]

Good morning, everyone. Michael, a question for you. I think I heard you mention that in the second quarter, the price cost headwind moderates to the tune of about 50 basis points. When we're thinking about year-over-year margin, is it fair to still embed roughly 200 basis points of year-over-year compression in Q2, and then things get better in the back half, basically?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah, I think that is, that's what I said. Yeah, I think that's a base. Again, with the caveat that we are in a very dynamic, uncertain environment, but to the extent that, based on what we know today, that is, that would be correct.

[Nicole DeBlase, Managing director and senior research analyst at Baird]

Okay. Sorry to keep beating up this topic on price. It's just that this environment, you know, is not something I've encountered in my career, frankly, before. When we're looking at PPI data, I mean, we're seeing some pretty material increases in food equipment and welding, and I'm sort of wondering if your business is sort of kind of keeping up with this industry data as well, or if there are some divergences that we need to be aware of. Because it would seem that most of the growth is really coming from pricing, not volume, if volume grows at all in 2022.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah, I mean.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

We wouldn't share that view.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah, we don't agree with that one. Two, I'm not quite sure what data you're looking at, so it's a little bit difficult for me to comment. All I can do is report the actual results for our food equipment business, for example. I think we give you a fair bit of detail, including by end market. Beyond that, I can't really, like I said before, we don't report price versus volume, and so I'm not sure I can help you.

[Nicole DeBlase, Managing director and senior research analyst at Baird]

Understood. Maybe one last follow-up. I'm curious as to how you're thinking about this pricing dynamic longer term, because to your point, eventually we're gonna start to see material costs coming down. Do you expect to be able to keep the pricing gains that you have had in this environment, or is it fair to assume some price erosion as we think about 2023 and beyond? Thank you.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Well, I think, let me just start by saying that, you know, our customer relationships are, you know, strategic long-term relationships. We're not trying to maximize price. We're trying to serve our customers and make sure that we get paid for offering a really differentiated product, service or solution. We've always had pricing power in these businesses. I think ultimately, these are gonna be discussions with customers when costs start to normalize, and there might be a few exceptions, but by and large, we expect to hold on to these price increases to recover the margins, like I said earlier. That's typically what happens if you go back and look in time.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

We're gonna end up with a period where we recover, you know, that margin percentage, and we don't expect the current cycle to be any different.

[Karen Fletcher, VP of Investor Relations at Illinois Tool Works]

Okay. Thank you.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Sure.

[Operator]

Next, we'll go to Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Your line is now open.

[Julian Mitchell, Analyst at Barclays]

Hi. Good morning. Maybe just wanted to try and understand the sort of earnings framework for the year a little bit. So it looks as if sort of operating margins are set to go up by about 300 basis points between kind of Q1 and Q4, with a flattish dollar revenue. Is that all simply the price-cost removal of the headwind? Is there any other kind of major moving part? Also, you know, to that point, are you sticking to that kind of 47, 53 first half, second half EPS split?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Yeah. Let me address that. I mean, I think we're still in that 46%-47% in the first half and the balance in the second half. The big driver really is what we've talked about, it feels like, for a while here, is price cost beginning to turn positive based, again, on the assumptions that we're making in our guidance. That's the drive. Now, historically, we do 49%-51%, so it's a couple of percentage points, but it is a little bit more back-end loaded. We expect that as we go through the year, sequentially starting in Q2, margins will improve, and so will revenues. That's just based, again, on kinda historical run rates.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

We expect a steady kind of improvement in Q2, Q3, and in Q4, including on the margin side. Whether it's exactly the number you laid out, I can't really comment, but directionally that is the right way to look at it.

[Julian Mitchell, Analyst at Barclays]

Thanks, Michael. Then switching to the balance sheet, which I don't think has been touched on yet, you know, and maybe some customer element as well, but your inventories are up, I think, almost sort of 50% year-over-year and up 10% plus sequentially in Q1. Just kinda trying to understand, you know, when do you think that starts to level out? You know, this major sort of inventory build that you're seeing, you know, how sure are you that you're not seeing the same phenomenon across your customers and channel partners as well, with obviously some risk to that if we do see final demand slow down?

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

I think if you look at our inventory levels, we're running at about three months on hand. Our historical is two months, and we have an extra month of inventory on hand, and I think we've been very clear about why that is. You know, it's to mitigate supply chain risk, it's to take care of our customers and ultimately to win this recovery, and take share at a point where our competitors are maybe not able to service our customers. That's the vast majority of these inventory increases. Just kind of maybe a little housekeeping, if you look at our conversion rate here in Q1, the difference between the 38% and the 80%-85% is about $300 million of working capital.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

Very intentional investments we believe are really smart use of our balance sheet. You saw the top line growth, right? At 11% organic this quarter. That, I would argue, would not have happened if we had not taken this approach starting really last year to make a conscious decision to invest in inventory. Then obviously receivables will go up as you grow, you know, double-digit. Ultimately, we don't see any reason why structurally when supply chain begins to normalize, both from an availability standpoint and also from a cost standpoint, that we will go back to two months on hand. At that point, when that happens, you'll see these free cash flow numbers will deliver above average performance until we're back to kinda normal levels.

[Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO at Illinois Tool Works]

We view this really as a temporary, you know, increase in working capital. How quickly that will come down, you know, depends on a lot of things, including what you're talking about and, which is, I'm gonna say inventory in the channel where we really don't have a lot of visibility. Other than I can tell you, for the most part, the channel does not carry a lot of inventory because they're used to the fact that we will take care of them when they need product. There's no incentive for them to carry a lot of extra inventory. That's probably the best I can give you, Julian.

[Julian Mitchell, Analyst at Barclays]

That's perfect. Thank you.

Participants

Executives

• E. Scott Santi, Chairman and CEO
• Karen Fletcher, VP of Investor Relations
• Michael M. Larsen, Senior Vice President and CFO

Analysts

• Andy Kaplowitz, Analyst at Citigroup
• Jeff Sprague, Founder and Managing Partner at Vertical Research Partners
• Joe Ritchie, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
• Julian Mitchell, Analyst at Barclays
• Nicole DeBlase, Managing director and senior research analyst at Baird
• Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research
• Scott Davis, Chairman and CEO at Melius Research
• Tami Zakaria, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan